In the summer of 2011, a team of physicists studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old claimed that our view of the early Universe may contain the signature of a time before the Big Bang. Their discovery may help explain why we experience time moving in a straight line from yesterday into tomorrow.

The CMB is relic radiation that fills the entire Universe and is regarded as the most conclusive evidence for the Big Bang. Although this microwave background is mostly smooth, the Cobe satellite in 1992 discovered small fluctuations that were believed to be the seeds from which the galaxy clusters we see in today's Universe grew.

Dr Adrienne Erickcek, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and colleagues believe these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe "bubbled off" from a previous one. Their data came from Nasa's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been studying the CMB (image below) since its launch in 2001.

Their model suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular.

Describing the team's work, California Institute of Technology professor Sean Carroll explained that "a universe could form inside this room and we’d never know".

The inspiration for their theory isn't just an explanation for the Big Bang our Universe experienced 13.7 billion years ago, but lies in an attempt to explain one of the largest mysteries in physics - why time seems to move in one direction. The laws that govern physics on a microscopic scale are completely reversible, and yet, as Professor Carroll commented, "no one gets confused about which is yesterday and which is tomorrow." Carroll added: "Every time you break an egg or spill a glass of water you're learning about the Big Bang."

Physicists have long blamed this one-way movement, known as the "arrow of time", on a physical rule known as the second law of thermodynamics, which insists that systems move over time from order to disorder.

This rule is so fundamental to physics that pioneering astronomer Arthur Eddington insisted that "if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation".

The second law cannot be escaped, but Carroll pointed out that it depends on a major assumption - that the Universe began its life in an ordered state.

In his presentation, the Caltech astronomer explained that by creating a Big Bang from the cold space of a previous universe, the new universe begins its life in just such an ordered state. The apparent direction of time - and the fact that it's hard to put a broken egg back together - is the consequence.

Much work remains to be done on the theory: the researchers' first priority will be to calculate the odds of a new universe appearing from a previous one. In the meantime, the team has turned to the results from WMAP. Detailed measurements made by the satellite have shown that the fluctuations in the microwave background are about 10% stronger on one side of the sky than those on the other.

Carroll conceded that this might just be a coincidence, but pointed out that a natural explanation for this discrepancy would be if it represented a structure inherited from our universe's parent.

Meanwhile, Professor Carroll urged cosmologists to broaden their horizons: "We're trained to say there was no time before the Big Bang, when we should say that we don't know whether there was anything - or if there was, what it was."

If the Caltech team's work is correct, we may already have the first information about what came before our own Universe.

The image at the top of the page is the "Cosmic Eye," which has given scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Durham University and Cardiff University, UK, a unique insight into galaxy formation in the very early Universe. Using gravity from a foreground galaxy as a zoom lens the team was able to see a young star-forming galaxy in the distant Universe as it appeared only two billion years after the Big Bang. The researchers, led by Dr Dan Stark, of Caltech, say their findings show for the first time how the distant galaxy might evolve to become a present-day system like our Milky Way.

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'In the summer of 2011, a team of physicists studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB)' Conjures up images of a shaman disseminating his 'wisdom' while intoxicated with amanita mushrooms, and throwing chicken bones, to read the past, present, and future :-)

Wow! Flabbergasting! What a racket these guys have! How far down into the intellectual masturbatory morass have we come since the nonpareil and stunning achievements of Einstein! The fact that they can be apparently well paid for such arrant twaddle is simply, well...breathtaking--with today's technology, I guess there is a sucker born now every femto-second!

The 2nd law is bullshit, and a matter of perception. When an EGG is smashed and rots, it's broken down by bacteria and it's individual molecules are brought into a higher state of order. Gravity guarantees that order increases. While an EGG may appear ordered at a high level, it's actually very disordered. A diamond lattice is highly ordered, an egg is not... it's full of space and fluid and random shit. For an egg to fall and be broken down and metabolized by tiny bacteria actually creates more order at a smaller level.

@ James S.
The total amount of entropy always increases over time. There are many events in the universe that create order, but for every unit of order created there is a net loss somewhere else. That is why perpetual motion machines are impossible, there will always be a net entropic loss.

Surely before the "Big Bang" there was no time nor space, just infinite mass.

Our universe appeared in the infinite mass in the same way a bubble appears in a soda drink.
The bubble appears to emanate from nothing but when created the bubble has it's own properties and continues to expand at an ever increasing speed until it reaches its finality.

The contents of the bubble originally constituted part of the whole, but a subtle change in the environment causes the bubble to form from the mass.

Our universe is a bubble of time and space that's been squeezed out of infinite mass. So rather than a "Big Bang", I suggest it was really a "Big Pop". And that's why the universe will continue to expand at an ever increasing rate until it reaches its finality.

The finality will occur when space and time have been so dissipated that each part is so infinitely small that it is reabsorbed into the infinite mass.

See into- URL topics & finally we can take the decision that our Universe is early or copy such like CD i.e. Digital Universe at http://t.co/nsND5lSm found a-Multimedia DEMO at http://www.twitvid.com/UENCI

With due respect, I would like to stress upon viz. request your esteemed organization to exactly evaluate and uphold the sketch of the present universe in the midst of mankind of the Universe. There is no denying the fact that it is possible to feel or assess it through the depth of our brain and nothing else i.e. no other means. Hence, it is crystal clear that our very brain is the only Sample or Specimen or Allegory or Centre of the Universe. See into- following below the URL topics- http://shahidurrahmansikder.wordpress.com/2010/11/

I don't give a dang about absolute perpetual motion, like the sun will burn out in a few billion years, so it's not perpetual motion, who gives a hoot! What I do care about is what I call "practical perpetual motion", something that last long enough to be useful, and I believe those kinds of machines can be made to work: like cars that will need no fuel none what so ever. I think those machines are coming.